246 GAY AND LESBIAN THEMES
signifi cant pages of Seduction of the Innocent to homosexuality. Wertham centered his
argument on Batman , claiming that the Batman stories were latently homosexual,
particularly because of the relationship between Batman and Robin. He additionally
singled out Wo n d e r Wo m a n and Black Cat as Batman’s lesbian counterparts.
Wertham’s work, released at a time of heightened sensitivity over social issues, had a
direct and immediate impact on the comics industry, eventually leading to the creation
of the Comics Code Authority. In the face of mounting threats of censorship from the
government, the Comics Magazine Association of America opted for self-censorship,
resulting in the drafting of the Comics Code in 1954 and the establishment of the
Comics Code Authority to implement it. Th e Code did not explicitly forbid homo-
sexual themes in comics, but the seventh regulation in the “Marriage and Sex” section
forbade representations of “sex perversion,” and homosexuality undoubtedly fell under
that category. Th e code subsequently underwent two revisions. In 1971, it was revised
to allow for strictly negative representations of drug use, but no changes were made to
the clause forbidding representations of “sex perversion.” In 1989, the Code was revised
again, this time to include an explicit sanction of homosexuality in comics in keeping
with greater social acceptance of homosexuals.
Th e Comics Code, which has since become obsolete, had a signifi cant eff ect on
mainstream comics, forcing artists and writers to limit suggestions of homosexuality
to, at best, mere innuendo. Th e code, however, never inhibited underground comics,
independent publishers, or smaller companies over which it had no jurisdiction.
Even as early as the 1950s and 1960s, a few examples of gay comics could be found.
Touko Laaksonen, a Finnish artist best known as Tom of Finland, began drawing his
homoerotic comics in the 1940s. His drawings began to appear in magazines starting
with the spring 1957 cover of Physique Pictorial. Laaksonen’s drawings, which remain
hallmarks of gay iconography, featured muscular men with inordinately large physi-
cal features and sexual organs. As well, Harry Chess: Th at Man from A.U.N.T.I.E. , an
erotic, satirical comic strip by A. Jay (Al Shapiro) ran in Drum magazine in the 1960s.
Two strips by Joe Johnson, Miss Th ing and Big Dickwere , also enjoyed a brief run in
1965 in Th e Advocate.
Comics featuring gay and lesbian characters, however, only began to fl ourish in
tandem with the growth in underground and independent comics beginning in the
1970s in the post-Stonewall era when gay and lesbian artists, and others sympathetic to
their cause, became motivated to act and began to express themselves more assertively
in the medium. Trina Robbins ’s Sandy Comes Out , published in Wimmen’s Comix #1 in
1972, was the fi rst comic to explicitly feature a lesbian character. In 1974, Mary Wings
published the fi rst comic book exclusively concerned with lesbian themes, Come Out
Comix , and followed it with another work, Dyke Shorts , in 1978. Roberta Gregory, who
came out in Wimmen’s Comix in 1974, published an important lesbian comic, Dyna-
mite Damsels , in 1976. Gregory later created Artistic Licentiousness , a sex comic strip, in
1990, and is perhaps best known for her characters Bitchy Bitch and Bitchy Butch, both
of whom appear in Naughty Bits , a quarterly begun in 1991.
